“I don’t think there is anything in the theory that the chauffeur or any one of the servants had a hand in it. There are several things which make that idea hardly worth considering. But there is one person against whom things look very black. Do you mean to say you can’t see who it is?”
“No, I can’t,” repeated Sidney.
“Mr. Sidney,” said the detective slowly, “where do you suppose Miss Turner is?”
“I only wish I knew,” answered the young man; “it is horrible not to know. Where do you think she can possibly be? Tell me the truth, Mr. Gimblet: do you believe she is dead?” He spoke harshly, and with averted eyes.
“No,” said Gimblet, “I don’t think she is dead.”
Something in his tone made Sidney look up. Gimblet was looking at him with a strange expression, and as their eyes met he turned away uneasily. For a minute Sidney stared at him wonderingly, and then an incredulous enlightenment stole over him.
“You can’t mean,” he said slowly, “that you imagine she had any knowledge of the attack on my aunt?”
Gimblet was silent; and his silence was more eloquent than words.
“But it is impossible,” cried Sidney, “that anyone out of a lunatic asylum should think such a thing. You don’t know her, Mr. Gimblet, she is the sweetest, dearest girl. The most unselfish, the most devoted, the loyalest girl in the world! How can you hint at it? Oh, I know it is your business to suspect people, but you go too far! I cannot hear a word against her.”
Gimblet turned and faced him.
“Be reasonable, Mr. Sidney,” he said, “and accept it as a fact that the young lady will be suspected. If she is innocent it will be better to try and clear her than to refuse to hear what there is to be said as to her possible complicity. I understand your feelings, but you must see that there is nothing to gain by disguising the truth. It is because I thought it possible that you might feel a keen interest in Miss Turner that I have told you I suspect her. I hope you may be able to help me to convince myself of her innocence, and surely the best way to do that is to try and get at the truth.”
“I will try and be reasonable, as you call it,” said Sidney, after a pause, “and I suppose by that you mean listening to your abominable accusations. Well, let’s hear your evidence, and if I can prevent myself from throttling you I will! More than that no man could say,” he added, with an attempt at a smile. “And I feel a beast even to allow you to speak of the thing.”
“I am extremely sorry to have to do it,” said Gimblet, “but no good ever came of shutting one’s eyes to facts, and it’s facts that make me suspect Miss Turner. In the first place, there is the fact that she stands to profit by Mrs. Vanderstein’s death to the tune of £30,000.”
“That applies to me, too, only more so,” interrupted Sidney.
“Yes, and I don’t think it of much importance,” admitted the detective. “I mention it as one of the points which is outside the region of speculation, and therefore not negligible. The second fact is that you were at your wits’ end for money.”
“I daresay! But what that’s got to do with your suspecting Miss Turner beats me,” cried Sidney.
“It’s got this to do, though I’m afraid you will not like my alluding to your most private affairs – Miss Turner is in love with you. We may call that fact No. 3.”
“There is absolutely no foundation for that statement,” said Sidney, flushing hotly, while he could not but be conscious of a strange acceleration in the beating of his heart.
“Is there not?” asked Gimblet, looking at him thoughtfully. “Well, we will waive that point if you like. Let us say that Miss Turner has an unusually friendly feeling for you. So friendly that she would go to any length to provide you with the necessary funds. You yourself have as good as told me so much. You cannot deny that she was the person who urged you to try to get the money by false pretences.”
“I am sure she did not look at it in that light,” protested Sidney, while inwardly he cursed himself for the slip by which, on the previous day, he had allowed the sex of his friend to escape him.
“I saw you with her in the Park last Sunday, did I not?” said the detective; “I noticed her expression. I am rather an observant fellow in my way, you know. I have only seen that look on the faces of people very much in love. I find I must go back to that, after all, in spite of your objection to the suggestion.”
“I do object very much. Miss Turner has no such feelings for me, I am sure, and I can’t let you impute them to her.”
“I am afraid you must,” said Gimblet tranquilly. “People who are madly in love,” he continued, “as I believe her to be, are capable of any sacrifice, of any heroism, or of any villainy. In that state of exaltation they are apt to lose their sense of proportion, and to confound extremes; they may see in the basest depths of infamy only another aspect of noble heights of self-abnegation; if the object of their affections is in danger, they may consider no expedient too shameful if it can be made to provide a means of extricating him.
“There is nothing inherently impossible in imagining that Miss Turner, conscious of nothing but your need, blindly strove to supply it and was in no mood to boggle at any feasible method. I don’t know if you are aware of the character borne by her father. He was a man of the worst reputation: an utterly merciless and unscrupulous swindler. His daughter may not have escaped the taint of heredity; it is, at all events, conceivable that her principles suffered from her early association with him. He is said to have died in South America, where he was obliged to fly to escape his just deserts, but there is no proof at all that he really did die.
“I know that I am for the moment dealing in theory, if I say, suppose this man to be secretly in London and in secret communication with his daughter. Suppose she let him see how direly she needed money at this moment. Might not a scoundrel of his description seize the opportunity to persuade her to help him in some such nefarious business as the robbery of Mrs. Vanderstein, and secure her silence, if not her assistance, in even a more dastardly business? To return to the realm of fact; the order to the motor not to fetch the ladies from the opera was given by Miss Turner. She ran back alone to tell the chauffeur, after your aunt had gone into the theatre. She had previously sent you this wire, in which she was very positive that the money you required would be forthcoming.
“She was seen by Miss Finner standing at the door of the house in Scholefield Avenue in the company of your aunt, and it is not too much to presume that she subsequently entered it with her. There would be no imaginable motive to induce a thief or gang of thieves to decoy her to the house: she had no jewels to be deprived of. There would be, on the contrary, every reason why she should be prevented from going anywhere near the place. Since, then, she assuredly went there on her own initiative, it seems probable that Mrs. Vanderstein was persuaded to accompany her by the girl herself.
“To go back for the moment to speculation, one may imagine that it was old Turner who masqueraded as West, the tenant, who is described as a horsey-looking elderly man who had lived much in a hot climate. This accords with a description of Turner I took the trouble to obtain yesterday, with the exception of the beard or imperial worn by West, which he may easily have grown of late years. It may have been the girl’s father, therefore, who opened the door to the two women, and who, once he had her safe inside, first locked your aunt in the library while he finished his preparations upstairs, and then led her to the drawing-room, as in times more in harmony with his deeds he might have led her to the nearest tree.
“Finally, in support of this theory, or at least of Miss Turner’s complicity in the affair, we have the facts that the two ladies were last seen together, and that, while the one has been found robbed and murdered, the other has departed without a word or a sign. It is only too likely that she is half way to America. The ports are being watched, but by now it is probably too late.”
Gimblet finished speaking and sat watching the face of the younger man. Sidney looked troubled, but his manner was confident as he gave his opinion.
“If she has not been heard of,” he said, “it is because for some reason she is unable to communicate with anyone. I have heard all your arguments attentively, Mr. Gimblet, and I must confess that you have not in the least convinced me that there is anything in your idea. It all sounds very plausible, no doubt, but if you knew the young lady as I have the pleasure of doing you would see that the whole thing is ridiculous. No one can be what she is and act in the way you suggest. Her nature is such as to put it out of the question. I can only repeat that the thing is ludicrously impossible, and that if you knew her you would be the first to see it. However, I agree with you that the best way of proving what I say is to find the real murderer. My only fear is that to-morrow you may discover that she too has been killed and buried in the garden.”
“I am not afraid of that,” said Gimblet, “because, as I tell you, if her presence had not been desirable she would never have been near the place. She would have been kept as unaware of its existence as you were yourself. The first essential of such a plan as the murderer must have concocted would be to get hold of Mrs. Vanderstein alone and unsuspected by anyone who was not a confederate.”
Sidney made an impatient movement.
“I am absolutely convinced that Miss Turner had nothing whatever to do with it,” he said.
“Well,” returned Gimblet as he rose to go, “I hope you are right and that further investigations will lead me to share your view. If we can lay hands on Mr. West we shall get at the truth, and unless he is very careful how he disposes of the jewels we are sure to catch him. From what I hear, Mrs. Vanderstein’s rope of pearls is well known to every jeweller in Europe; and, if he tries to sell so much as one of them, he’ll find a very different sort of rope around his neck. Now I must be off; they are expecting me at Scotland Yard.”
CHAPTER XX
It was long past one when at last Gimblet got to bed. He had had a long and tiring day, full of strain and excitement, and his head was no sooner on the pillow than he slept soundly and dreamlessly. It seemed to him that he had only just shut his eyes when Higgs awoke him the next morning by coming in with his hot water. He rolled over yawning and rubbing his eyes, as his servant pulled up the blinds and laid ready his clothes. When he had finished and gone away, the detective turned over again for another snooze; but in a minute Higgs was back again.
“The young man from Ennidge and Pring has called, sir,” he said, “the clerk who came with the key last evening, you know, sir. He wants to know if the inquest is to be to-day, as, if not, he has been given a holiday and is going to spend it in the country.”
“He can go,” said Gimblet; “the inquest won’t be till to-morrow.”
He was thoroughly awakened by now, and went to his bath as soon as Higgs had departed.
Breakfast was on the table when he entered the dining-room, and he helped himself to omelet and sat down and poured out his tea before he took up the morning paper, which lay beside his plate.
As he folded back the sheet and cast his eye over the page, he uttered a startled exclamation and sat staring incredulously at the paper as he read:
MYSTERY OF MISSING LADIES PROVES MYTHICAL
Mrs. Vanderstein is Staying at Boulogne
“Our correspondent at Boulogne telegraphs that Mrs. Vanderstein, of 90 Grosvenor Street, is staying at the Hôtel de Douvres in that town. Having observed her name in the visitors’ book of the hotel, our correspondent inquired of the manager if the lady could be she who had been reported missing for the last two or three days, and learnt that, while the manager was unaware of the anxiety which has been felt in England on her account, it is certainly Mrs. Vanderstein, of 90 Grosvenor Street, who is at present beneath his roof. Further conversation with the affable and obliging host of the Hôtel de Douvres elicited the information that the lady arrived early on Tuesday morning with the intention of staying for one night only. She complained of feeling indisposed, however, and sent for a doctor, who ordered complete rest; so that Mrs. Vanderstein kept her room till this evening, when, her health being improved, she dined in her apartment as usual, but afterwards went out to the Casino.
“As luck would have it, the manager was relating these details to our correspondent at the very moment – about 11 p.m. – when a carriage drove up to the door, and the lady herself re-entered the hotel. On our correspondent’s introducing himself and explaining that grave anxiety was being felt on her behalf in this country, she expressed considerable astonishment, and said that this explained the fact that letters she had written had not been answered. She conjectured further that they could not even have been delivered, remarking that the French postal system left much to be desired. In reply to further questions, the lady proclaimed her aversion to being interviewed, and said merely that she would send some telegrams in the morning; upon which our correspondent withdrew, and she entered the lift and mounted to the first floor, where she has a suite of rooms.
“Mrs. Vanderstein, who appeared to be entirely recovered in health, was elegantly dressed in a black and white casino costume, with a rose coloured toque trimmed with an osprey, which was very becoming to her dark hair and superb complexion. She was wearing some of the magnificent jewels with which rumour has been so busy during the last few days.”
Gimblet read the paragraph twice, and then pushing back his chair walked restlessly about the room. His appetite was gone for the time being; his eyes glowed again with the excitement of a new problem. One second he spared, in which to be glad that Mrs. Vanderstein still lived; he was glad for Sir Gregory’s sake, and for Sidney’s sake, and even a little for her own, though he had never to his knowledge set eyes on her. But from the first he had felt an indefinable sympathy for the fastidious lady whose house was scented with the delicate, delicious perfume that he associated with her name. But, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Vanderstein, alive and well and disporting herself at Boulogne, slipped quickly out of the place in Gimblet’s interest hitherto filled by Mrs. Vanderstein dead and cruelly murdered. His mind now occupied itself busily and eagerly with the questions raised by this shifting of rôles in the tragedy of Scholefield Avenue.
If Mrs. Vanderstein had not played the piteous part of the victim on that fatal Monday night, who had? Not Miss Barbara Turner, for she was described as having very fair hair, while that of the murdered woman was very dark. And if Miss Turner were not flying from justice, where was she? Could she and Mrs. Vanderstein have combined to kill their hostess, when they visited the house hired by Mr. West of tropical origin? In any case here was a tangled knot to unravel, and a black crime to bring home to its perpetrator. Gimblet saw that he was not likely to solve the puzzle off-hand, and reflected that in the meantime he had better fortify himself with food while he had the opportunity. His breakfast was rather cold by the time he again sat down to it.
What, in heaven’s name, had Mrs. Vanderstein and Miss Turner been doing in that house on Monday night? Had Miss Finner been mistaken, after all, and was it not they whom she had seen before the door? If so, by what astounding coincidence had he been led to search there of all places, by what incredible freak had Fortune taken him to the scene of this black and cold-blooded crime? His brain, while he ate, busied itself with these and such-like riddles.
Soon after breakfast a high official from the Yard called for him in accordance with arrangements made the night before, and they set forth together in a taxi for Fianti’s.
“For,” said the official, as they went, “whether it was Mrs. Vanderstein or some one else whose body you found, we want the man who did it equally badly, and we want your help in finding him. I suppose your commission from Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones dies a natural death now?”
“I suppose so,” said Gimblet, “but I’ll see him presently and let you know. There’s still Miss Turner to account for, but I daresay she’s at Boulogne too.”
“As likely as not,” agreed his companion. “It’s just the sort of little detail they’d forget to mention.”
“Well, we shall soon know,” was Gimblet’s only comment.
At Fianti’s they sent up their cards by the detective of the regular force who was always in attendance on the Prince and Princess of Targona, with a request for the favour of an audience. They had not long to wait, and were very graciously received by Prince Felipe, who listened with grave attention to the explanation of the object of their visit, and read the note presented for his inspection by Gimblet with a lively curiosity.
No, His Highness was afraid he could not assist them in this matter. The writing paper was certainly his – how obtained he could offer no suggestion – the writing was of course a forgery, if that could be called a forgery which made absolutely no pretence of resembling the original. He had no notion to whom the appellation of Madame Q. might refer. No doubt more than one lady whose name began with that initial had been presented to him on different occasions, but he could not for the moment recall… Possibly some of his suite could be of more assistance.
But no one of the Prince’s household could give them any help. In the matter of the writing paper, it was suggested that the hotel servants might know something as to how it was obtained, but nothing definite could be found out about it.
The Prince sent for them again before they left, but it was only to say that they had his best wishes for the success of their investigations, and to ask a few questions as to points of English police procedure in which he appeared to be interested.
“Truly, a strange country!” he murmured from time to time on receiving the answers to his inquiries.
Before they were dismissed, Gimblet once more produced the crumpled paper which bore the Targona arms over the Prince’s name, and asked the Prince if he could detect a certain odour which clung about it.
“Delicious,” said Prince Felipe, when he had pressed it to his nose, “a delicate, pungent fragrance! But no, I do not know what it is.”
The official parted from Gimblet at the door of Fianti’s and while the one returned in a hurried taxi to his sanctum at Scotland Yard, the other strolled across the street to Mrs. Vanderstein’s house.
He found a relieved and rejoicing household.
“You’ve seen the news, of course, sir,” said Blake, himself opening the door in answer to the detective’s ring. “And we’ve had a telegram this morning. Here it is.”
He handed it to Gimblet, who read:
“Blake 90 Grosvenor Street London W. Think letters must have missed am staying at Hotel de Douvres Boulogne till further notice writing.
“Vanderstein.”
The telegram had been sent off at 8.14 that morning.
“I suppose Miss Turner is with her, sir,” Blake was saying, as Gimblet gave him back the paper, “the newspaper doesn’t mention her.”
“No,” said Gimblet. “Still, as you say, I daresay she is there all the same. It is Mrs. Vanderstein, and above all Mrs. Vanderstein’s jewels, that the public is interested in.”
He went back to his flat, where he found Sidney and Sir Gregory, both radiant.
“What splendid news!” Sir Gregory greeted him as they met, with a joyful cry. “I could not believe it at first; it seems too good to be true. But oh, Mr. Gimblet! what a night I have spent! I shall send that reporter man a fiver. These newspaper chaps sometimes have their uses, after all!”
“I hope you see now,” Sidney remarked, “what a mistake it is to suspect people of doing impossible things.”
Sir Gregory looked towards them with a puzzled expression. Gimblet, however, merely smiled.
“I am delighted to be in the wrong, Mr. Sidney,” was all he said.
“She will laugh when she hears what a fuss I’ve been making,” resumed Sir Gregory, pursuing his own thoughts. “I think I shall run over to Boulogne to-morrow and see her. I assure you, Mr. Gimblet, I feel ten years younger again. What a nightmare it has been!”
“I found a wire for me at the club,” put in Sidney; “she says she is sorry we have been worried, and that her letter must have missed the post. It’s jolly good of her to wire to me; I didn’t think she meant to have anything more to do with me when I last saw her.”
“It looks as if she had forgiven you, doesn’t it?” said Gimblet.
He was thinking that it was not every young man in Sidney’s position who would have looked so delighted to hear that his aunt was alive after all, when all his difficulties seemed removed by her supposed death.
“She doesn’t say a word about Miss Turner,” Sidney continued. “She might have, you’d think. Of course she doesn’t realise in the least that we’ve been imagining her murdered.”
“I telegraphed this morning as soon as I’d seen the paper,” said Sir Gregory, “and said we had been most anxious and that I trusted they were both well. I expect there will be an answer for me by the time I get back. Must be going now in fact. You see she has been ill; kept her room till last night, the hotel man said.”
“It’s a very odd business,” said Gimblet. “I have done a little telegraphing on my own account, I may tell you, for I want to know whether Mrs. Vanderstein did go to Scholefield Avenue, or whether Miss Finner took some one else for her. I ought to get the reply any minute. And the police are sending a man of theirs over to see her, by the afternoon boat. They want me to help them with investigations of the tragedy we discovered yesterday. I suppose, Sir Gregory, that I can be of no further use to you?”
“Thankee, Mr. Gimblet, I hope I shan’t trouble you any more.”
After a little more mutual congratulation the two visitors took themselves off, and Gimblet composed himself to await the answer to his telegram, which was now due.
He was sitting contemplating his Teniers, the beauties of which he had not had much leisure to gaze at of late, and munching sweets as he mused, when the expected ring came at the door of the flat; but instead of the message he thought to receive it was Inspector Jennins from Scotland Yard, an astute and good-humoured officer, who had before now been his associate in more than one important case.
“I came round to tell you, Mr. Gimblet,” he exclaimed as he was shown in, “that the young lady has been found.”
“What, Miss Turner?”
“That’s it. She’s in the Middlesex Hospital and, what’s more, has been there all the time.”
“Then how in the world was it that no one knew it? That was one of the first places I inquired at, and I daresay you did too.”
“Yes; she was brought in on Wednesday morning about 3 a.m. by a police constable who had been on night duty in Regent’s Park. He saw her knocked down by a man, and picked her up unconscious, and she has been so ever since. The man got away in the dark, and at the hospital no one recognised the young lady from the description given in the inquiries that were made, as the account of the clothes she wore was all wrong. But there have been a lot of photographs of her and Mrs. Vanderstein in the papers to-day and yesterday, and this morning one of the nurses who’d been studying her portrait recognised the original in spite of her wounds. The hospital authorities communicated with us, and I’m off to the hospital now. I thought perhaps you’d like to come.”
“I should, certainly,” said Gimblet, and they were soon on their way.
“I have only once seen Miss Turner, and that was only a passing glimpse,” Gimblet said as the taxi sped along. “Don’t you think it would be a good plan to take one of the Grosvenor Street servants with us to identify the young lady? It is possible that the nurse may be mistaken; people look so different in a horizontal position. And their saying that her clothes were wrongly described looks to me as if there were some error somewhere.”
“I think that’s a very good idea of yours,” agreed Jennins, and putting his head out of the window he told the driver to go to 90 Grosvenor Street.
They called for Amélie, Mrs. Vanderstein’s maid, who appeared after a few minutes, in high delight and excitement at the prospect of assisting the police. She looked rather reproachfully at Gimblet, as though she would have liked to point out to him that it was to be regretted that he had hitherto failed to appreciate how valuable her co-operation might be. “Ah, cette pauvre demoiselle,” she murmured as they got into the cab; and her manner indicated that she would have liked to add: “How different it would have been if you had consulted me earlier.”
At the hospital there was a little delay before they were led upstairs and handed over to the guidance of a pleasant-faced nurse who led them to a ward full of casualty cases, which had suffered various injuries at the hands of Fortune.
In one bed was a woman who had been knocked down by a van; in the next a child who had fallen into the kitchen fire; in the third a woman whose husband had kicked her to the very verge of the grave; the fourth held a girl with an arm crushed in the machinery of the factory she worked in – so the nurse informed the inspector.
She led the party through the ward, keeping up a running commentary as they advanced, till they reached the end bed of all, in which lay a young girl whose head was covered with bandages, and who lay quiet and still as if asleep.
“Here she is,” said their guide.
Gimblet looked at Amélie.
“Mais oui, monsieur,” she answered his unspoken question. “C’est bien Mademoiselle Turner. Ah, là là! the poor one, what have they done to her?”
Barbara looked terribly white and fragile. Her face had grown thin to emaciation, and there were deep blue lines under her eyes.
“Poor young lady,” said the nurse, “she’s got concussion of the brain, and it must have been a frightful blow that did it.”
When they left the ward Gimblet asked: “How was it Miss Turner was not recognised till to-day?”
“Well,” said the nurse, “you see the pictures in the papers aren’t very good, and her hair is so hidden by the bandages that it’s rather hard to see the likeness. But what really put us off here was the description of the clothes she was supposed to have been wearing. Of course no one ever thought of connecting her with a young lady in a whi